The Collection
Mark Gertler

Portrait of a Man with a Bow Tie

Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 42.4 x 32 cm Date: Inscription:

Mark Gertler

Mark Gertler was born in Spitalfields, London to Austrian-Jewish immigrant parents in 1891; the family was repatriated to Przemysl in Galica the following year and lived on the brink of starvation until enabled to return to London’s East End in 1896. Aided by a loan from the Jewish Educational Aid Society, Gertler trained at the Slade School of Fine Art (1908-11), where he won a scholarship and many prizes. He was the first and youngest Jewish working-class student of his generation to do so and a number of the other ‘Whitechapel Boys’ soon followed in his footsteps.